Syndication

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Since Hippocrates, medical practice has been seen as both science and art. In the 21 century, amid ever-greater scientific advances, medical schools are working to maintain balance between the two, developing new ways to highlight the art of medicine.

On Dec. 5, first-year medical students at the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences will participate in a new requirement: attending the First Year Humanities Day.

UB medical students will hear about and discuss medicine as depicted in poetry, music and drawing; they will even be able to participate as artists themselves, drawing a nude model in one of the sessions as they learn to correlate findings from gross anatomy in a living body. Other topics include discussing health care in terms of cost, cultural attitudes and ethics.

“UB, along with other medical schools nationwide, understands that just as we require our students to develop scientific expertise, they also need to develop expertise in the art of practicing medicine,” says Michael Cain, MD, vice president for health sciences at UB and dean of the medical school.

“Our students must learn to appreciate and understand not just clinical symptoms but the individual who is experiencing them,” he says. “The medical school’s new humanities requirement is one way to achieve this goal.”

The half-day event, sponsored by the UB medical school’s Center for Medical Humanities, includes a broad range of workshops and lectures that use the arts, humanities, ethics and social sciences to teach the art of medicine and techniques of observation, analysis and self-reflection.

Members of the media are welcome to attend: for more information, contact Ellen Goldbaum, goldbaum@buffalo.edu and 716-645-4605.

Is stress bad for you? Not all of it. In fact, a life without stress would be neither healthy nor enjoyable. You do NOT want to wake up to days that are stress-free. Your clients don't want that for you either. With the right stress, you are a better lawyer or mediator. From an article in the Stanford alumni magazine:

In her lectures and classes, [Dr. Kelly] McGonigal used to teach people how to reduce or cope with stress, as if it were something to be avoided and dreaded. But in light of this research, she's changed her tune. She no longer focuses on training people to relax, breathe and calm down in the face of stress. Instead, she encourages them to harness the stress: "Rather than trying to slow your pounding heart, why couldn't you view it as your body giving you energy?" she says.

After all, even if you could live in a stress-free bubble, you'd probably have to excise all the things that imbue your existence with happiness and meaning—like relationships, challenging work, learning and growth. "In a way," McGonigal concludes, "stress is a kind of engagement with life."

Written by lawyers Hallie Love and Nathalie Martin, Yoga for Lawyers - Mind-Body Techniques to Feel Better All the Time, published by the American Bar Association 2014, is a gentle introductory approach grounded in scientific studies, scholarly research, and clear instructions. Proven to relieve stress, energize, and improve sleep, the featured easy-to-learn and easy-to-do meditative techniques and therapeutic yoga stretches can change your life in just minutes every day.

With photos detailing the exercises and written descriptions of how and why to do them, Yoga for Lawyers offers techniques that can help you improve your law practice by sharpening your ability to concentrate and bettering your overall state of mind and well being.

Pointing to studies that show lawyers are twice as likely as others to be alcoholics and three times more likely to suffer a heart attack, a professor from the University of New Mexico School of Law has helped write a book advocating yoga to help.

Nathalie Martin, the Frederick M. Hart Chair in Consumer and Clinical Law, co-authored “Yoga for Lawyers: Mind-Body Techniques to Feel Better All the Time” with Hallie Love. Love, who is a yoga teacher, also has more than a decade of experience as a practicing lawyer.

Professor Martin's passions include three long-term life goals: first, helping small businesses get started in New Mexico, and thus improving the State's overall economy; second, helping consumers avoid the many traps and pitfalls created by the current consumer credit world; and third, helping lawyers maintain balance in their lives.

She routinely advises law students on managing stress while practice law in a healthy and productive way, and invites students to visit her personal wellness page.

Here's a link to my page (contemplativelawyers.com) with articles and resources related to lawyers, meditation, and mindfulness. With so much attention now being given to these topics, it is hard to keep the page updated! Let me know if you see other links I should add.

Although this article uses the neuromythology of right brain/left brain, and is focusing on the medical profession, it nevertheless includes some observations that could prove useful for lawyers and other conflict practitioners. From an article in Philadelphia's The Inquirer "Restoring left-brain activities to medical school" (a title that is puzzling as it does not fit the article even if one uses the neuromyth of the brain being divided in function):

Medical education is in a crisis. According to a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine, half of 4,287 students surveyed at seven medical schools experienced burnout and 10 percent expressed suicidal ideation. And doctors aren't much better off; a second study in JAMA Internal Medicine of 7,288 physicians showed that almost half had experienced some symptom of burnout.

The public image of doctors hasn't fared well, either. While the popular notion of doctors was once the wise and avuncular Marcus Welby, M.D., more recent portrayals tend toward Dr. Gregory House, a brilliant but annoying know-it-all with a decided God complex.

Salvatore Mangione, an associate professor at Thomas Jefferson University, thinks he knows why. In talks and papers, he has investigated how medical education veered off course and how it can be reinvigorated. ......

"We've heard [anecdotally from students] that the [drawing] class was almost like Zen therapy," says Mangione. "The students felt that this helped them see things differently and to feel differently."

You probably don’t need statistics to appreciate the pervasive role of stress in American life, but the numbers are there if you do. A recent Stress in America survey found that a quarter of adults experience high stress on a regular basis, and 42% say their stress levels are rising.

Given the impact stress has been known to have on physical and psychological well-being, that makes it a pretty urgent problem for behavioral researchers to consider.

“As everyone knows, stress is prevalent in everyday life,” said APS President Elizabeth A. Phelps of New York University, by way of introducing her presidential symposium at the 2014 APS Annual Convention. “And it seems to be increasing.”

Phelps gathered a wide-ranging panel to address the roots of stress — as well as potential interventions for it — from neurobiological, cognitive, health, and developmental perspectives.

Today you may read a couple of her lawyer-related articles. First is "Canine Court" (San Francisco Chronicle Magazine) the story of her first trial.

Sparky the Airedale was my first client to stand trial. It was 1973 and I had just passed the bar. According to the lawsuit, the “aforementioned animal hereinafter referred to as ‘dog’ ” had collided with, knocked down and otherwise upset Alberto Gutierrez*, next-door neighbor to Sparky and his owner, Mrs. Carmen Moreno. It was a far more innocent time for dogs then, but not for neighbors vying for parking.

From the same publication comes "Type A-Zen: Is it possible for lawyers to slow down enough to tear lettuce?" in which she writes about lawyers in a meditation retreat. (Page 2 of the article is here.)

Zen lawyers. As a former practicing attorney and longtime meditator, this koan intrigues me. Type-A attorneys, aggressive adversaries driven to win, practicing Type-B Zen — letting go of control, feeling compassion and leaving no one with the short end of the stick.

The workshop leader, a former lawyer, now Zen priest, liked my story idea. So I carpooled from Marin with other workshop participants, five hours down the coast, then through Carmel Valley to Los Padres National Forest.

This made me smile.

On a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being “Om” and 10 being “See you in court and may you live to regret it,” a lawyer’s idea of slowing down seems to be around 7 or 8. They are dreamy-eyed after sitting in 108-degree water, but still forceful, direct.

If you believe as I do that a mindful mediator is a more effective mediator—both because of his or her adept ability to utilize conflict resolution skills but more importantly because of the direct effect he or she has on the parties' affect (i.e., mood)—then I have a suggested program for you below.

No surprise to any of you who read my blogs: I think the reflectiveness, the mindfulness, of the mediator is significant, sometimes paramount, in the resolving of disputes. That mindfulness state is what in my opinion moves a dispute professional from adequate to excellent, to one who serves clients in a manner that is outstanding.

Because I think both play and self-knowledge can enhance our mindfulness, I am recommending a workshop to you. It's being taught September 18-21, by Doctors Bonnie Badenoch and Theresa Kestly in the artist and farmland community of Corrales, New Mexico, near the Rio Grande River. Click for all the details and to register. I have taken two seminars from Bonnie in the past, read two of her books which I recommend frequently, and believe she is gifted at working with clients. Even though I have not yet taken a class from Theresa, I know much about her approach and philosophy because I have read and appreciated several chapters of her forthcoming book The Interpersonal Neurobiology of Play. Both she and Bonnie are well-grounded in the science that underlies what they practice and teach.

So if you want to enhance your ability to resolve disputes while having fun in a beautiful setting learning from two mindful experts, sign up here.

Note: To learn more benefits of play, go to some of my past posts: here, here, and here.

Click to watch a video Path of Freedom about a meditation project in a Rhode Island men's prison. From YouTube:

In the harsh environment of a Rhode Island men's prison, a group of fifty inmates are transforming their lives through the practice of meditation. Path of Freedom follows former inmate Fleet Maull as he visits prison to share his strategies for surviving on the inside. The film offers a rare glimpse into the inner lives of men reaching for forgiveness, inner peace and freedom behind bars.

Click to watch a video of Dr. Emiliana Simon-Thomas giving a short overview (around 20 minutes) of the biology of mindfulness and compassion. I recommend it; she's entertaining, in addition to being knowledgeable.